Looking at the forecast, John and I made the wise decision to leave early. We stopped at a McDonald's for breakfast and were on the road by 8 AM. Google's directions went something like this: zigzag through Andrews until you reach Eunice Highway, turn left and pedal for 40 miles, your destination will be on the left.
Though we have been slowly climbing toward the Carlsbad Caverns, the land rises slowly enough to appear flat. We call this land miles and miles of miles and miles.
As you might imagine, our minds wander on these days. For the last several days I've been wondering about the hundreds, if not thousands of oil rigs we have passed. I always though of oil rigs looking like the picture on the right, but today was the first day we saw one. The picture below is what we have been calling oil rigs, however their real name is pump jack. We've only seen one oil rig but pump jacks have been everywhere. We've literally see hundreds if not thousands of them.
As our day was going well, we decided to stop at one of the many historical markers found in Texas. Today's marker was unsurprisingly, about an oil well.
It's the first in the county and once produced 200 barrels a day...
Even though we've seen many pump jacks, we had never seen one close up.
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| Large hoses lead away from the pump toward large storage tanks further away. |
The day was going very well, only 15 miles to go and then... damn.
As it turned out, while the pavement was rough, it was ride-able. We also got to see the many stages of road grooming.
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Neither John nor I have ever seen a machine like the one above. The spiked wheels roughed up the dirt surface. Later another truck wet down the area.
The shoulders were scraped down several inches, dirt dumped and the truck below spread it out to create a new shoulder.
Yesterday we saw this gentleman's bike parked at McDonald's and wondered about him. He was nowhere to be seen, so we moved on and gave it no more thought.
To our surprise, we ran into to both man and bike as we exited the construction area.The rough road had shifted all his packs. He is from Florida and began his journey there. We swapped a couple stories and pushed on to Eunice.
A mere handful of miles later, we entered New Mexico, our 21st state!
Tomorrow we will finally reach Carlsbad Cavern. It will be a 70 mile ride, a long day for the two of us. We've packed extra water and feel confident that we will arrive none the worse for wear.
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